Descending through thick cloud towards Cork airport brought a slight sense of foreboding. Just at the moment when the wheels were about to touch the tarmac, the engine note rose unexpectedly.

A breezy Irish voice from the cockpit informed us that the ground wind speed was greater than 30mph, too high to land, and we were heading towards Dublin before making another attempt. On the second approach, with everyone braced against the seats, the plane bounced, veered left and eventually came to a standstill. Curtains of rain blew across the emerald fields.

We were there for the Cork Jazz Festival, which draws upwards of 40,000 visitors every autumn. Trudging through lashing rain that afternoon on Patrick Street, we sought shelter in the English Market – a cornucopia of cheeses, handmade breads, seafood and glistening vegetables. On the balcony of the Farmgate Restaurant, we ate rich fish soup and got a bird's-eye view of butchers preparing joints on a stall below.

The centre of Cork, recovered from marshes in medieval times, is virtually an island, bounded on either side by the brown waters of the River Lee. At the eastern end of this "eye" of land, where the waters divide, was our accommodation, the modern and spacious Westview Apartments. We had come to Ireland for the music, but here the most pervasive sound was that of water rushing below our window.

So where do you capture the spirit of Cork? My money would be on the An Spailpin Fanach on South Main Street, a dimly lit bar that seems to stand in Celtic defiance of the mock-Tudor frontage of the Beamish brewery across the street.

In a warren of small, wood-panelled rooms, one with a roaring fire, you can sip Jameson whiskey and listen to traditional Irish music well into the early hours.

Although the biggest crowd-puller in the Cork Opera House was the Chick Corea and John McLaughlin concert, somehow it could not compete with the afternoon and evening of music at the Gresham Metropole Hotel.

It may not have suited jazz purists, but it was great entertainment. You just bought a pint of Guinness and took your pick from any of the performances running concurrently in different areas of the hotel: blues in the ground-floor bar, a traditional quartet upstairs or the full-on blast of swing in the main ballroom.

Jazz audiences are often composed of the over-fifties, but not in Cork, where all ages come out in their best party dress for the four days of festivities. "It's a bit like a big wedding reception," my friend observed. And so it was – good- humoured, a little old-fashioned and infused with that sense of friendliness that characterised our whole visit.

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